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When
presented with a movie tie-in one normally sighs deeply, simply
because most of them lack the substance to be something other than a
substandard game, however with  Disney/Pixar:
Cars one may be pleasantly surprised. This game follows the
story of newly released movie of the same name, with players able to
experience some of their favourite parts of the movie and aim to win
the coveted Piston Cup.
The
main area for the game is Radiator Springs, which acts as the HUB
and, although set out into five separate Chapters, there are many
objectives that needn’t be completed in a linear order and instead
form interesting diversions from the main plot.
The
main bulk of the game consists of Street Races you must complete to
not only progress the story, but to earn the all important Trophy
Points needed to unlock the crucial Piston Cup Speedway Races; which
you must win all of to complete the game.
The Street Races are quite varied and although based on only
a few courses are changed enough to provide familiarity without so
much repetition it feels you are only doing a couple of courses. One
unfortunate feature is that the computer will let the player know as
soon as they are going off-course and give them up to three seconds
to get back on the Track before resetting - the point as to why this
may be included is logical, how many times in Racing games have you
spun off-course and lost races due to losing your way? Especially
with this title having a child-friendly nature, it does seem like a
good feature. The feature is a bit too sensitive, as it can be
triggered by simply taking a corner too wide or shallow and will
often put you back on track in the wrong place, making the player as
likely to find it as infuriating as it is helpful.
With
most of the Courses you drive using McQueen, but on certain others
you drive as Sally, Mater in the RustBucket Race-O-Rama and you even
get to chase down speeders as the  Sheriff
- which adds an almost Grand Theft Auto moment to the
proceedings, as you look for pedestrians to mow down.
This
isn’t a very technical Racer, although driving well does take a
little practice at first, with players feeling the cars are heavy
and unresponsive. It takes only a short time to get used to and when
you drive round so much you soon wonder why you had such difficulty
to begin with. As the game progresses a couple of new abilities for
the car become unlocked, such as the Boost and the ability to go
backwards with a double-tap of the X Button. Most of these new
Power-Ups become uncovered when doing a Training Task or Race. These
Training Levels make you aware of the Power-Slide and when to use
it, as well as obtaining new skills, so very often they are useful,
if not essential to do.
There
are quite a few Mini-Games, such as Luigi to the Rescue (in which
you must drive around the main streets of Radiator Springs
collecting spare tires and hubcaps) and my own personal favourite,
Tipping Tractors, which sees you running round a field tipping over
sleeping tractors, and avoiding being caught by the combine
harvester Henry. Many players would agree there should be more of a
destructible nature to the game - as hitting a barrel will cause
your car to spin-out rather than the barrel being knocked over -
this is a little surprising and annoying when going at fast speeds
as  you
may find yourself cursing and having to do tricky three-point turns
in order to get out of a corner. There are way too many Loading
Times on this game, before every Race or Event, after the Cut-Scenes
and everywhere in-between and, while gamers have mainly accepted the
inevitable appearance of Loading Times, they seemed a little
excessive with this title, Disney/Pixar: Cars has quite a
dialogue heavy storyline and because of this we get so many Loading
Screens.
As
you continue playing the game you can earn Bonus Points with you use
to unlock different cars and artwork. Although unlocking new cars
does nothing for you in terms of the Story Mode, you can race as
them in the
Arcade
and Versus Modes; these gameplay modes allow you
to play any of the
Speedway
and Street Races and also the Mini-Games you
have unlocked in the main game.
In
terms of graphical prowess, I would describe Disney/Pixar: Cars
as decidedly average and, although in one area there is a glitch
which kept getting stuck, there were only a couple of instances
where the game played-up. A few invisible walls grate a little and
some of the Collision Detection can be occasionally poor, but these
are relatively small problems when compared to the usual half-baked
“it’s a kid’s game…” approach.
The
sound for this game is a bit of a conundrum. Featuring songs from
the movie Soundtrack, however when driving around
from one-end of Radiator Springs to the other, there is not much
variation with the songs and players will often feel like they’re
constantly hearing the same songs over again. The Voice-Acting is
also taken from the film and flips between vaguely amusing and
annoyance very quickly. Passing cars on the road acknowledges the
passing of local celebrity Lightning McQueen and if you bump into
them they do get a little disgruntled and moan about their paintwork
a great deal, but McQueen’s various “ka-pow” and “its great
being me” quips get a bit much sometimes, and win no favours when
it comes to liking your main character.
Overall
Disney/Pixar: Cars is a very mixed bag. While the main part
of the game is fun there are simply too many small problems to say
this is a brilliant release. If you wanted a fun racing game for
your GameCube, I would suggest Mario Kart: Double Dash!! over
this, but when you consider the large amount of games given a film
license end-up being very poor indeed, this is possibly one of the
better movie tie-ins you could buy if you specifically wanted a game
to go with the movie.
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